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I have been waiting for over a year now for somebody… anybody… to give one good reason for leaving the EU. The simple truth, which we all have to face, is that it is going to be a disaster. Nigel Farrage should be arrested on a charge of treason.

Okay, David, how about the restoration of the primacy of parliament, sovereignty and the rule of British law over that of an unelected and unaccountable, German-dominated, Brussels-run, non-transparent, superstate that is based on the Code Napoleon and not Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights?

Gabriel – the problem is that if you bought the camera in Europe some time in the future, you’ll be paying for it in Euros, and against the Euro the pound has crashed big time over the last year or so. The fall in the value of sterling is not just against the Yen. (Or dollar for that matter.)

I’m not going to get into pro/anti Brexit arguments, but it’s a fact that the £ has severely lost value versus the Euro in the last year or so. It’s heading towards parity and should be expected to be at least around Euro1.30-1.40. That’s not opinion, it’s fact, and if in any doubt just look at the xe chart: http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=EUR&view=2Y

Problem is Ripsnorter, that we’ve shot ourselves in the foot big time, by letting our rose tinted outdated ideals of Rule Britannia wash over us. Truth be told, as has been said on Radio 4 recently, we, the British government, actually had the power to control our borders and our laws all along but successive governments didn’t because it was deemed too costly, too controversial and likely too much hard work. Now we are throwing the baby out with the bath water and will suffer the consequences for the foreseeable future. More expensive goods is the tip of the iceberg.

You are wrong, Tomstpl: the UK is bound by the EU’s freedom of movement and many other things as well. You need to get away from the BBC and especially Radio 4 and explore the alternative media. This from someone who used to work inside BBC news, by the way.

VAT is an EU tariff imposed upon all member states of the EU,everyone of us who lives and work in the EU has to pay VAT of up to 25% depending in which country we live. So would it be correct in assuming that if the UK is no longer in the EU community then we will no longer need to pay VAT?
After all VAT is the club membership fee, if we are not in the club then the club cant charge club fees?
So maybe in the future our kit will in fact be cheaper than other EU countries and more or less on par with US prices.
Wishful thinking or a fact?

The structure of VAT is indeed due to the EU – but the money raised goes to the UK government – not the EU. So no different to any other money raised in the UK by taxation in that respect.

So whilst on Brexit it may indeed be possible to abolish VAT, then (in the absence of magic-money-trees) it would mean either hugely cutting spending and/or raising other taxation, Income Tax or whatever.

In other words, the club is defining (in principle) ways we can and can’t collect our own money – but VAT money remains in the UK.

So basically, I’m afraid your final wish is indeed wishful thinking. Big problem here is exchange rate. Such as cameras tend to be priced in yen, and what their price is elsewhere is determined by exchange rates. And to (mis)quote Harold Wilson, the pound in your pocket is now only worth about 75% or less of what it was a year or so ago.

Ripsnorter is clearly a very aggressive post-imperial fantasist, but that does not make him right. As to his assertion of being a one-time BBC News insider, I am at a loss to understand the point he is making. He seems to be trying the Donald Trump ‘fake news’ approach.

It’s the difference between facts and opinions. It may be ripsnorters opinion that leaving the EU is for the best, and well, he is fully entitled to such an opinion.

What is a different matter is whether leaving the EU will be good or bad for the UK economy in financial terms – and the falling value of the £ against nearly all other major currencies seems to starkly indicate that it’s most likely to be bad.

If ripsnorter or anyone else in favour of Brexit was to then say “OK, the future may be worse economically, but for other reasons I still think we should leave”, then again, it’s their perfect right to hold such an opinion. But for anyone to think “once we leave the EU we’ll be a far richer country” is to make a judgement that simply flies in the face of facts – for starters just look at the 2 year £ v Euro graph I posted earlier. To think we’ll be financially better off post-Brexit seems to owe much more to sheer optimism than financial knowledge – the people responsible for exchange rate setting can’t afford to go by sentiment, too much of their money to be lost by not being hard-headed!